


Leitmotif

by Hexephre



Category: Original Work
Genre: Original Fiction, short fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 02:23:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16567784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexephre/pseuds/Hexephre
Summary: A short story about finding your muse. Original fiction.





	Leitmotif

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for my short fiction class. Today I get to hand out a printed copy to every classmate and my professor, and next week they'll get to talk about it for a half hour while I'm not allowed to say anything. It's an interesting process, if certainly nerve-wracking! But my peers are creative and kind people who are great at pointing out strengths you didn't know you had and phrasing improvements or suggestions in a nice way.

I lean back in my seat and cradle my lute comfortably in my arms. It’s a little too small for me now, but it feels right, nestled here in the crook of my elbow. My fingertips play silent passages along its neck while my other hand traces the delicate engravings on the body, the sweeping waves and swirling clouds that depict my hometown of Dreaming Cove. The worn country road is bumpier than I’d like, but Lana, a farmer heading home from the last town, agreed to let me hitch a ride on her wagon.

“It’s a darned to death quiet way,” she’d said. “Wouldn’t mind a bit of music if you’re so inclined, miss, and maybe a story or two. I went to Dreaming Cove once, back when I was a wee girl. Never did get another chance.”

“There isn’t much in Dreaming Cove to make stories of,” I said. “Sun’s nice. Sea’s nice. I’ve got plenty of stories about other places, places I’ve passed through.”

“I’d love to hear about Dreaming Cove,” she said.

I smiled politely. “Name’s Wandering Brook. Brook for short.”

 

We’ve been on the road for hours now. The canopy over our heads protects us from the direct rays of the midday sun, but it can’t block out the muggy, dusty air that fogs up my mind, so different from the salty breeze that never leaves home. I strum a couple of chords. I frown. Pause. Start over.

Lana pulls her eyes from the road. “Something wrong with your lute?”

“Hm? No, it’s not the lute.” I scrawl a couple of things down in the notebook on my knee, then try a new progression. But it’s as dry as the road and the endless wheat fields around me.

“Can I have a look?”

Reluctantly I pass her the notebook. I can hear each lackluster composition as she flips to it, page after page of overused chords and trite lyrics playing dully in my mind’s ear. _Foggy Peaks_ didn’t have enough mystery to it. _Echo on the Marsh_ was too repetitive. These places were so different from home, so rich with potential, but I just haven’t been able to capture them in melody. I don’t know if I’ll ever find anything that’ll live up to Jade Reef.

“You know,” says Lana, “I can’t read music.”

I stifle a laugh drier than the scenery. “Nothing worth reading in there, anyway.”

I wonder how much farther it is to town. We’ve been travelling for hours and there hasn’t been a building in sight. There’s no one out here with stories to tell me. Lana’s more interested in the fish market of Dreaming Cove than the one in her own hometown, but I don’t think she could stand the pungent smell of fish or the slimy curtains of seaweed hanging out to dry. You don’t get that kind of stuff inland—just your usual fruits and vegetables and slabs of meat, and the boring people who sell them. I thought I’d meet someone with a fresh perspective out here. But none of their tales have sparked the fire.

I stare ahead down the road, trying to see through the dust on the horizon. The waves of wheat shimmer like a golden ocean. Maybe there’s a song out there. The way things have been going lately, though…

“This someone else’s song?” Lana peers at a much tidier page. “Who’s Jade Reef?”

“Childhood friend. I wrote down all her songs to see if I could figure out her secrets. But I don’t want to copy her, you know? I need to find my own voice.” The sounds away from Dreaming Cove are so different. I figured if I came out here I could at least try something new. “I still remember all the songs she played at the music academy’s competition. Every year of them.”

“Are they all in this book?”

“Yeah.” I turn a few more pages. The book falls easily to the one I was looking for. “Here’s last year’s. _Forever to the End._ Made her papa cry and everything.”

“What about your songs?” Lana asks.

“They’re not in there. No point studying what didn’t work.”

“You still remember them?”

“Yeah.”

“Play me one,” she says. “The one you played last year.”

“I’d rather play _Forever to the End_.”

“I want to hear your songs.”

“No one wants to hear my songs over Jade Reef’s.”

“I do.”

I sigh and tune up my lute.

 

Hidden away deep in the forest, I sat cross-legged in my hammock. With the fingers of one hand I danced along the neck of my lute; with the other I plucked each string in perfect time. The lyrics trilled like a clear brook tumbling over rocks on its way to the sea. Every note danced in sync with its neighbours. I had this competition in the bag.

“Brook!” Jade Reef’s voice rang clear through the forest. “I know you’re out here.”

I stopped playing at once and climbed out of the hammock to meet her. “You better not have heard me practicing.”

Her eyebrows were all up in her wispy bangs, a smile playing on her lips. I loved her dimples and the crinkles around the corners of her bright green eyes. “I promise I didn’t.” She stuck out her pinky finger, and I hooked it with mine.

“I wrote the perfect song this year,” I said. “you’re gonna love it.”

She reached out to flick an errant curl from my eyes. My skin tingled where she’d brushed it. “I bet I will. But you’ll love mine more.”

“I just might. Oh—here.” I plucked the four-leaf clover I’d twisted around one of the pegs of my lute and held it out. “Found it in the field this morning.”

Her green eyes were wide. “I couldn’t,” she said. “You’re the one who found it.”

“But you’re Jade.”

I shouldn’t have given her the clover. But I don’t regret it.

I played well at the competition, but _Forever to the End_ stole everyone’s hearts from the moment Jade Reef sang her first note. The way her long, silvery hair shone in the light, the look on her face as each note cascaded from her lips, the little green sprout tucked behind her ear, the way her fingers caressed the strings: she was radiant, and no one had eyes or ears for anyone else.

After everyone had performed, we all sat at the front of the audience to wait for the jury to decide on a winner. I couldn’t sit still. My legs bounced on my toes, my hands clutching each other. Finally Old Wisp hobbled onto the stage. Jade Reef looked my way and I read _good luck_ on her lips, and my chest filled up as if I’d chugged a big steaming mug of hot chocolate. I swallowed hard and nodded back.

“The jury has come to a decision,” said Old Wisp. “Tonight’s best, most brilliant performance was by… Jade Reef!”

My heart couldn’t decide whether to jump into my throat or fall into the pit of my stomach. It compromised by doing flips instead as Jade Reef rose to accept the award amidst the deafening cheers. Her eyes searched for me. I ducked my head out of the light from the stage. I couldn’t bear to meet her gaze, to see her triumph, even though I wanted so badly to see her joy and pride.

I slipped out of the auditorium and down to the beach, then kicked off my shoes. The soft, cold sand supported me, betrayed me, supported me again. The flips had subsided, my heart too leadened to jump any longer. I walked until the water was up to my ankles and stared at the sea. I didn’t know if I was angrier with her or myself.

I asked the sea, “Why can’t I just be happy for her?”

The tide roared back like a lion soothing its cub. It was right, of course. It wasn’t her I was angry with. It was never her.

Jade Reef was calling my name. Even from a distance her voice was a clear bell over the rush of the sea. “Brook!” She hurried down the beach, nearly tripping in the sand.

I kept my gaze on the lapping tide and said, “I really am happy for you.” I meant it, even if the anger was louder.

Her hand rested on my back. It was hot—almost too hot, like the burning coals in my gut. She said, “You should have won.”

“What? No way. Didn’t you see the audience?”

“Not really.” She had this particular way of picking up her feet in the waves. “When I play I don’t think about the audience. I sing for one person only. I want them to hear my heart.”

“They heard it,” I said. “Everyone heard it. That’s why you won.”

“There’s always next year,” she said.

“Not for me.”

“What…?”

“I’m gonna go out and travel,” I said. “I won’t stop until I find the inspiration to write the best song anyone’s ever heard.”

For a moment the only response was the rushing of the tide.

“You’re… leaving?”

Something about her voice hooked my heart. Finally I met her eyes. They shimmered like the waves. I wished I could drown in them for what I’d done.

I reached past the lump in my throat to find a smile for her. “I’ll be back before you know it. And I’ll have come up with the most amazing song. It’ll blow you away.”

She blinked rapidly, her fluttering eyelBrook glittering with moonlight. The line of her lips trembled. And with it, I faltered too. Did it really matter? Being better than Jade Reef?

“Be safe,” she whispered.

Instead of flipping, my heart forgot for a second to move at all.

 

The wagon rolls up the road to Lana’s house not too long before dark. I agree to help her stable the horses and put away the cart in exchange for dinner and a bed for the night.

“I hope you find that song of yours,” she says. “Not a lot of people are willing to give up what they love in search of something better.”

“Dreaming Cove got stale,” I say. “Nothing ever changed. Jade Reef won because she was always better than me.”

She shows me to the guest room. “You get some rest now.”

“I’ll try, but I don’t sleep too well around here,” I admit. “All crickets and no waves.”

“People are funny, aren’t they? Crickets put me right to sleep, but those waves had me tossing and turning all night.”

“Guess they are.” I glance out the window, almost expecting to see the sunset reflected on the ocean. But the wheat fields don’t have that same blinding ripple to them.

“Do you think she misses you?”

I don’t know why this catches me off guard. No matter how many times she comes to mind, I never imagine her staring wistfully out her window, wondering if I’m doing okay. “Probably. But she’ll be fine. She’s always been just fine.”

But I can’t get the thought out of my head all through that sleepless, cricket-thrumming night. The real question isn’t if she misses me—it’s if it keeps her up at night. It’s if I’m on her mind as much as she is on mine. If she ever stares at the stars’ reflection in the tide pools we used to love and hopes I’m looking at the same ones. If she ever picks her way down the path to the cave where we used to hide from our parents calling us to dinner. If she ever sits on the cliff where we listened to the songs of the sea and sang them back.

My mind’s ear swells with music. I climb out of bed and fish out my notebook.

I leave as soon as I can say goodbye to Lana. It’s a good thing she’s used to rising before the sun. “Come visit sometime,” I say, securing my lute to my bag.

“Sure. You can show your new song.” She tosses me an apple. “Safe travels, Brook.”

It’s a long way home, but I barely stop to rest, catching naps on the backs of caravans or in warm churches, chewing on dried jerky and leftover mutton as I walk. I listen only briefly to the pub chants and solemn hymns, just enough to weave them into my song, a tapestry of my travels. The mist of Foggy Peaks whispers through to the deep echo of the Marsh. And all the while a single theme recurs, a sweet melody that once danced with the soft notes of a lyre, a melody that never left my mind—no matter how far I left it behind me.

It might not be the best song anyone’s ever heard. It might not even be the best song I’ve ever written. But it’s the song I want to sing.

My pace and heartbeat both pick up as I take my first steps back onto the cobbled streets marbled with iridescent abalone, as I pass the whitewashed walls embedded with shells and sea stars. I don’t pause for the astonished voices calling my name—not Six Quill and his barrel of fish, not Thundering Surf or her five children all running around her. There’s exactly one place I need to be.

The house next to mine looks exactly as it did when I left. I set down my bag and pick up my lute. She’s there in the second story window, sitting at her desk, the end of her pen resting against her lips.

Her eyes flick toward the window. Then back. Then back up again, wide as sand dollars. All in a rush she stands and leans out, silvery hair catching silky in the wind.

My heart is as warm as my smile is wide. I take a deep breath.

And I sing.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second short story written for this class. This one's inspiration comes from the backstory of my D&D character, a Tabaxi bard. That said, I believe strongly that short stories of this nature should be able to stand on their own, so I make an effort to remove any unrelated details and distill the tale into something complete and whole without further context.
> 
> For example, being a Tabaxi has no specific bearing on the story, although the names are flavoured similarly to Tabaxi naming convention. And although my character is ultimately a dungeon-crawling, magic-wielding adventurer, that doesn't really factor in to the character development happening in this short. So here she's just a non-magical travelling bard.
> 
> The names got changed, too, to be more thematic. Maybe a little on the nose, but I would rather that than have poetic names that hinted at something else entirely – my D&D character's name is Ashes in Eyes.
> 
> This story, like my last one for this class, has gone through some intense revisions over the course of the past few weeks. Ultimately I tend to find myself writing about twice the amount that actually ends up in the story – I have a document set aside for cut sections, and it's longer than the story itself, although some of that is accounted for by the spaces between unrelated segments. Sometimes I just like the phrasing; sometimes there's details I'll need to bring back. But honestly my main reason for keeping these kinds of documents is because it can be hard to let go of something I worked on, even a short phrase. In this way I get to shift it out of my final work without truly losing it. It frees me up from fear of failure, which is really the big kicker when it comes to creativity!


End file.
